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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A Purchase Decision - Mascarade

The game in question for this week’s entry is…

Mascarade

Mascarade is designed by Bruno Faidutti who is best known for his work on
Citadels.

He has also designed many other games such as Isla Dorada,
Pony Express, and Mission Red Planet.

Mascarade is a bluffing & deduction game with multiple
roles in the same vein as Coup.

Game Info

Mascarade plays 2-13 players

Published playing time is 30mins
Mechanics – Bluffing / Deduction / Variable Player Powers

How it Might Play

The objective in Mascarade is to use the powers of the characters to obtain 13
coins ( or to have the most coins when another player goes bankrupt ).

The game has very few rules and relies on the character
powers ( and the players’ guile ) to make the game dynamic and different each
time.

Game Components

At the start of the game, each player receives a character
face up. This is visible for all players to see before they are all turned face
down.

On a player’s turn, they have only one action but three
possible choices

1) Swap their card – or not –

2) Secretly look at their card

3) Announce their character ( execute a power )

The start player and the 3 players after him/her have to
execute what is called a mandatory opening move – Swap their card – or not –.

After which, play continues in turn order with each player
executing any of the 3 actions as mentioned above.

When performing the “Swap their card – or not –” action, the
player simply chooses another player, takes that player’s card ( facedown ),
and decides to swap their cards ( or not ) under the table. What this achieves
is that there is a possibility that each player ends up with the same card as
they started with, or the cards are now swapped. Only the player who activated
the action will know.

The second action simply lets you confirm for yourself what
role you currently have in front of you.

The last action requires you to announce who you are / who
you think you are / who you are pretending to be and to claim the power
associated with that character.

When this action is taken, each player going clockwise has a
chance to instead declare that they are the chosen role you have announced.
Once all the players have had a chance to stake a claim, all the players
involved in the claim are to reveal their cards. The player who was indeed the
announced character gets to execute the power immediately, and the other liars
all have to pony up a coin to the courthouse. If no one made a claim to be the
announced character, that player immediately gets to execute the power without
revealing his/her card.

Once a player has made known via a reveal that he/she is a
particular character, on that player’s turn, the only action that can be
executed is the “swap the card – or not –” action. They may not once again
announce to be the revealed character.

This carries on until one of the two end game conditions is
met

1) Someone owns 13 coins ( or 10 coins if he/she is the
Cheat )

2) Someone goes bankrupt

The player with the most coins is declared the winner !

Example of some of the Character Powers

1) Bishop – take 2 coins from the richest player

2) Fool – takes 1 coin from the bank and may swap the cards
of 2 other players

3) Judge – takes all the coins in the courthouse

4) Peasant – takes 1 coin from the bank ( both peasants take
2 coins if both are revealed )

5) King – takes 3 coins from the bank

6) Witch – swap all your coins with another player of choice

7) Cheat – wins the game if player owns 10 coins

8) Widow – receives coins from the bank to top up player’s
total to 10 coins

Concept Art for the Cheat

What I Like ( from reading the rules )

Character Abilities

The character abilities seem varied and interesting. When played
correctly, some powers can be played in tandem and a healthy back & forth
seems to be present.

Some may seem overpowered but in a role bluffing game, this
is needed so that each role is fought over constantly.

Artstyle and Iconography

I love the art in Mascarade. It may seem messy at first but
they all do look very ball like. And the iconography to depict the card ability
is very well done that upon looking at it, I can immediately recognize the card
ability. And I haven’t even played the game yet !

Player Interaction

Mascarade seems to have player interaction in spades. Nearly
all the roles have an effect on other players and always seem to bring the game
forward to the end instead of holding them back at the start. The lack of
player elimination is also a good thing for me.

What I Dislike ( from reading the rules )

Too Chaotic

I actually appreciate chaos in simple quick games, but
Mascarade seems a tad too chaotic for me especially with a high player count.
It is good that the game keeps the wealth flying around and keeps changing the
roles of the players, but maybe a bit too much ?

Reliance on the Truth

Mascarade gives me the feeling that most players will tend
to rely on telling the truth and adverting the risk of outing somebody if you
don’t have the actual role. I can’t see the reason behind claiming to be
another player’s announced character if you truly aren’t as this will result in
you losing a coin and also losing your ability to announce that character on
your subsequent turn. This means that only the announcement part of the game
seems like the big time to bluff and not anytime else

Restriction on Character Mixing

Although there are multiple character cards, they can’t
simply be mixed and match for any number of players. There are some
restrictions to follow ( one third must bring money into the pool, some are
reserved for 8+ players only ). This also means that without the higher range
of players, you may never get to use certain character types which is a shame.

Good with More but Worse with More

The game seems to work best with 7-8 or more players ( based
on the cards used and the powers of the characters ), but it also seems to be
way too chaotic and unmanageable with such a high player count. If I choose to
look at my card, by the time my turn is back, I may already have a completely
different card, twice.

The high player count seems to be a very sharp double-edge
sword that keeps poking back at me with warning.

Roles Breakdown per number of Players ( not sure why they used pepperoni as check markers ! )

Conclusion – Will need to unmask to see if it’s a beauty or a beast ( try
before I buy )

I really enjoy simple card games like Coup and Love Letter, especially when
bluffing and(or) deduction is involved. But I have a strange feeling that
Mascarade may not be what I am looking for, at least not entirely. I think the
gameplay might breakdown to a series of find and use your character rather than
bluffing & risk taking gameplay ( which I have hopes for the game ). I hope
to be wrong but will need to play to find out. Don’t think I am willing to risk
jumping in head first.

basically
the idea of "A Purchase Decision" is just to state out what i thought
of while deliberating whether or not to buy a particular game.

i'm
not sure how each of you decide on what game to purchase ( art,
newness, designer, etc etc ), but for me, each purchase goes through a
very vigorous and tough selection process, which usually also includes
the reading through of the rule-set.
so i thought i would just
list through my thoughts on how the game is going to play like and what i
considered before i made ( or did not make ) the purchase

if you do read through it, i hope that whatever i had to say might help as well in your game purchasing decision ! :)